Aircraft meeting certain criteria may need to be certified by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to operate in United States airspace. Such certified aircraft may be required to be able to detect ice for all points within a predefined zone such as, by way of example and not by way of limitation, a zone or envelope defined in a Federal Aviation Regulation (FAR). A representative such envelope or zone may be defined in FAR, Part 25, Appendix C, known as an Icing Envelope, and may appear at 14 Code of Federal Regulations (14CFR).
There may be a region in which presently available ice detector systems may not detect occurrence of icing on aircraft surfaces. A non-detection region (i.e., a region in which an aircraft's equipment may not detect icing conditions) may be traversed during climb, hold and descent evolutions of an aircraft. Such non-detection of icing may be especially dangerous if an airplane occupies a non-detection region for an extended interval of time.
There is a need for a method and apparatus for detecting icing conditions for an aircraft with improved effectiveness and reliability.
There is a need for a method and apparatus for detecting icing conditions for an aircraft that does not significantly degrade fuel efficiency of a host aircraft.